1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to identifying image objects in a set of image objects, and more particularly to identifying interrelated image objects from a set of image objects.
2. Description of the Related Art
Query by image content (QBIC) is a useful technology that allows a user to query a collection of images based on visual characteristics, such as average color, color distribution, color layout, and texture. A number of publications describing QBIC exist; for example, Image Search User""s Guide and Reference, Version 2.0.1 (1997), provided by International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,579,471, Barber et al., xe2x80x9cIMAGE QUERY SYSTEM AND METHODxe2x80x9d issued on Nov. 26, 1996.
In a system employing QBIC technology, the number of image objects available for searching may be quite large, making it difficult to assess and understand the entire contents of the collection. Unfortunately, conventional technology does not yet provide a suitable means to analyze a collection of images to understand the taxonomy of those images. That is, conventional image queries alone provide very little, if any, xe2x80x9cvisual miningxe2x80x9d capability. The ability to form relationships between images of a set may be particularly important to some businesses such as advertising agencies, animation production firms, etc.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide means for clustering images in an analytical manner so that their underlying nature can be understood.
A method and apparatus described herein provides a means for identifying a subset of interrelated image objects from a set of image objects. In one example, a query for identifying an interrelationship between image objects of a set of image objects is received. Each of a plurality of similarity values between image objects of the set is compared with threshold criteria from the query. A number of clusters of image object identifiers may be generated based on comparing.